I am more me when I am not me.

Covering myself in stage makeup and manipulating my natural hair in my dressing room, I step into a vortex. I am no longer a bubbly junior who moved cross-country midway through high school but a mysterious, wealthy housewife and later a henchman doing the bidding of my frightening boss. In the mid-1930s, foreshadowing the impending World War, I am first a blissfully unaware counterpart to my evil husband looking to stir up trouble. I welcome the unsuspecting hero kindly, but not too kindly, into my sprawling mansion with an uncountable number of rooms. During the next act, I transform into a subordinate tasked with getting rid of the dashing hero. In the process, I crash a West End show and run into a flock of sheep. The adventures I have over the course of just two hours are enough to last me a lifetime.

I felt naively confident when I started acting classes right after my freshman year. I had spent an entire year immersing myself in movies and television shows, relegated to my bedroom during the COVID-19-19 pandemic. My classroom lectures took a backseat to more critical forms of education — HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and Prime, just to name a few. Instead of spending hours and hours memorizing the periodic table, I spent a week straight learning Amy March’s monologue from “Little Women.” She laments her desire to “be great or nothing,” finally being upfront with Laurie after years of torment. I spent days pouring over the hidden meanings in her word choice or the way she delivered one sentence in a completely different manner than another. I imagined myself in a silk gown, petticoat, and lace gloves, wanting nothing more than to achieve what I’ve always wanted.

Sometimes, I took myself to more modern times, teaching myself Mia’s monologue from “La La Land” about not being good enough to succeed. Mia has only ever wanted one improbable thing and is left with a final choice: to give it all up or sacrifice her happiness. I found a piece of myself in every character I watched, and in exchange, I found a piece of that character in me.

Over the course of that year and a half in isolation, I compiled a list of all of the movies and TV shows I indulged in. The list serves as a time capsule into my experience as a teenager, realizing my passion for acting and cinema as a whole. All 88 titles remind me of something different, from aimlessly reciting lines in my room to a family movie night in my new house away from my loved ones. Some people watch films to numb their minds, but to me, it’s like watching my world expand, even if it’s limited to my computer screen or a television. I wanted not only to watch the experience but also to participate in it.

I find it ironic that my starting acting classes were synonymous with my emotional first year of high school outside of Los Angeles. I had friends whose parents were actors back home, and there were too many classes to count in my old neighborhood. Yet, I started acting as soon as I moved somewhere that only has three classes offered for my age in the whole city.

My hands shook with fear as they called my name to perform my scene. In front of a room of strangers surveying me with watchful eyes, I delved into a new facet of myself, unlike anything I’d experienced before. I wanted nothing more than to prove to myself that my passion was really worth anything. Thankfully, I was met with assuring smiles and praise from both my instructor and peers. I actually felt at home.

Now that I’m a more practiced actor, I’ve realized acting and school have never been opposites. What I learn in one, I funnel into the other. Roles about the early 20th century allows AP U.S. History to come alive; I can almost hear the swing music pulse through my ears, bringing me to a time I’ve only ever watched movies about. By diving into a character with greatly differing life experiences from my own, I start to better understand the reasoning behind their actions. I have started to apply this to my everyday life, which has given me more profound empathy and perception of those around me. Strangers can quickly become unimportant entities in everyday life, but acting has opened me up to the possibility that everyone has their own story. Even the most mundane teacher or disagreeable classmate has a narrative to be told. I walk through the world with a new set of attentive eyes; anything can be inspiration for a tale worth telling.